the aarp interview

Obama Tells Rolling Stone Why Republicans Are So Lame

The military journal Rolling Stone has taken a break from its usual “all war all the time” Afghanistan/Iraq reporting to visit with the military’s president, Barack Obama, in Washington. Last time Obama had to deal with the army magazine was back in June, when Rolling Stone ‘tween cover boy Stanley McChrystal got in trouble for saying how much he hates America’s president and vice president. And then Obama had to fire him. So what does this anti-Rolling Stone president have to say to the magazine? He basically explains how Republicans made a tactical gamble that the economic devastation was going to be around for a long time — at least until 2010, although many experts say “forever” — so blocking whatever Obama Administration programs to pump money into the moribund economy and get Americans back to work would, maybe, make it look like the Republicans weren’t to blame for letting the Great Recession happen during their control of the White House for the previous eight years and Congress until 2006.

Here are a few Obama quotes from this very long interview, which we will post as a way to say to Jann Wenner, “Look we know it is super cool for you to go to the White House and interview Obama all by yourself, but this could’ve been edited down to maybe 2,000 words, and it still would’ve been a good story that gets lots of blog links and Politico mentions!”

Speak, Nobama:

But the delays, the cloture votes, the unprecedented obstruction that has taken place in the Senate took its toll. Even if you eventually got something done, it would take so long and it would be so contentious, that it sent a message to the public that “Gosh, Obama said he was going to come in and change Washington, and it’s exactly the same, it’s more contentious than ever.” Everything just seems to drag on — even what should be routine activities, like appointments, aren’t happening. So it created an atmosphere in which a public that is already very skeptical of government, but was maybe feeling hopeful right after my election, felt deflated and sort of felt, “We’re just seeing more of the same.”

Yes that is what we summarized in our lede. Speak, Nobama:

There are some strong and sincere libertarians who are in the Tea Party who generally don’t believe in government intervention in the market or socially. There are some social conservatives in the Tea Party who are rejecting me the same way they rejected Bill Clinton, the same way they would reject any Democratic president as being too liberal or too progressive. There are strains in the Tea Party that are troubled by what they saw as a series of instances in which the middle-class and working-class people have been abused or hurt by special interests and Washington, but their anger is misdirected.

And then there are probably some aspects of the Tea Party that are a little darker, that have to do with anti-immigrant sentiment or are troubled by what I represent as the president. So I think it’s hard to characterize the Tea Party as a whole, and I think it’s still defining itself.

Well that’s a long-ass way to say “they’re ignorant white racists,” but how else can The Professor answer a question? Speak, Nobama:

My iPod now has about 2,000 songs, and it is a source of great pleasure to me. I am probably still more heavily weighted toward the music of my childhood than I am the new stuff. There’s still a lot of Stevie Wonder, a lot of Bob Dylan, a lot of Rolling Stones, a lot of R&B, a lot of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Those are the old standards.

So except for the jazz, it’s the same stuff Rolling Stone has been writing about for half a century! Awesome. (We like Bob Dylan, too, but we don’t put him on the fucking cover of Wonkette once a year like clockwork. That honor is reserved for Mitt Romney.)

Finally, we should let RS editor Jann Wenner have some of his words excerpted, because they’re so great. Who says RS needs “a new Hunter Thompson,” eh? Maybe Rolling Stone just needs MORE Jann Wenner!

The conversation stretched on for nearly an hour and a quarter. The president began by complimenting my multi-colored striped socks. “If I wasn’t president,” he laughed, “I could wear socks like that.”

2,000 words from Jann Wenner? Must be a think piece about a mid-level President struggling with his own limitations in the harsh face of stardom.

badseeds

Jann still sounds like Bella Abzug on speed.

SayItWithWookies

“If I wasn’t president,” he laughed, “I could wear socks like that.”

Oh please wear socks like that. And put them up on the Oval Office desk. I want to see Andy Card finally have the aneurysm he deserves.

JMPEsq

Need moar Lea Michelle panty shots?

badseeds

What (or who) doesn't?

BaldarTFlagass

I just hope that one of the songs on Obama's iPod is that old song by Dr Hook and The Medicine Show.

prommie

Nobody could have predicted that the GOP redneck racist know-nothings would fly their obstructionism into the White House.

FearofaBlackReagan

The president listens to 'Trane? My opinion of him just went back up a little.

Radiotherapy

that's one of My Favorite Things too.

hooray4anything

Yep. One of the myriad of reasons to be a Democrat/lliberal is that the chances Romney/Palin/McConnell would even know who John Coltrane is is pretty close to nil.

paxromanaclef

"Speak, Nobama" is today's "I'm with you in Rockland."

Oblios_Cap

The conversation stretched on for nearly an hour and a quarter. The president began by complimenting my multi-colored striped socks. “If I wasn’t president,” he laughed, “I could wear socks like that.”

You're the President of the nation with the world's strongest military. Why are certain sock colors proscribed for you? Are we electing our leaders by their wardrobe these days?

North Korea doesn't!

notreelyhelping

Barack paints in oils…while the country paints by numbers.

fuflans

it's always the wonkette cover that gets me to buy.

Bonzos_Bed_Time

Would it kill them to have a single page option for the damn story. F'in page view monitization…

WhatTheHeck

There was a time when Rolling Stone was all about sex n’ drugs n’ rock n’ roll.
Then they morphed into the same corporate greed they once railed against.
Now they represent no one. Next time, Mr. President, don't bother.

I_Kill_Zombies

What's this "accidentally" bullshit? Tom "I hate Messkins" Tancredo would put that shit in his weekly radio address.

“Gosh, Obama said he was going to come in and change Washington, and it’s exactly the same, it’s more contentious than ever.”

See – here is my problem. By CHANGE, I never thought he meant he was going to make the repukes get along with the Dems in happy-mclick-dicks-lala-land.

By CHANGE, I thought he meant "We are going to stop being gigantic democratic leadership pussies, and beat the Republicans over the head with a baseball bat, seeing as how we have the congress and the presidency and a 10,000,000 vote mandate."

But now I see how I was wrong.

dr_giraud

Yes! It IS the chance of seeing the picture of fudge-packin' Mitt that brings me back to Wonkett day after day.